The Tenth Planet (TV story)
The Tenth Planet 'is the second serial of the fourth season of ''Doctor Who. It was written by Kit Peddler and Gerry Davis, directed by Derek Martinus and featured William Hartnell as the First Doctor, Michael Craze as Ben Jackson and Anneke Wills as Polly Wright. Overview To be added Synopsis The TARDIS lands at the South Pole in 1986. The arrival coincides with the appearance of Earth's forgotten twin planet, Mondas, along with visitors from that world - the emotionless Cybermen. It's up to the Doctor, Ben and Polly to stop the creatures before they covert the Earth's population into similar cyber creations - but this encounter will have a devastating effect on the Doctor... Plot Episode 1 A rocket designated Zeus IV is launched from the Snowcap tracking station, piloted by two astronauts, Williams and Schultz. One of the engineers, Dyson, keeps his eye on the rocket's movement from a remote scanner in the base. In the barracks, one man is looking outside into the blizzard with a periscope when the TARDIS suddenly materialises close by. Inside the ship, the Doctor has Ben and Polly dress themselves for the blizzard conditions before they head out to investigate. Stepping out of the ship, Polly spots a number of ariels as well as the periscope. The men in the base are shocked to see the travellers out there and head outside to bring them in. The sergeant immediately doesn't take kindly to the travellers being there and orders the base general, Cutler, to be summoned. When he arrives, he interrogates the travellers and orders them to be restrained until he has time to deal with them, before returning to the tracking room. Ben and Polly are rather disheartened when the Doctor points out that they are in 1986, twenty years off their native time period, but they are suddenly intrigued when they learn that space traveller ha been achieved in that time and expeditions to the Moon have taken place. The crew receive word of a energy loss and positioning error from Zeus IV, so Willaims and Schultz are forced to try and correct it. However, when Williams looks outside to check their bearings, they spot another planet somewhere between Venus and Mars. On Snowcap, the Doctor attempts to assist Cutler with the crisis, claiming to know the cause, but he doesn't listen, so the Doctor gives a slip of paper to Dr. Barclay. The crew turn their attention to the newly spotted planet from Zeus IV; Dyson contacts the rocket and informs them that they're going to try and divert their path. Williams and Schultz attempt to land manually, but the gravitation pull of the new planet causes them to descend into a spiral. They contact Snowcap and update them but they are told that no help can be provided from them or they'd overshoot. While Barclay tries to send them a new descent path, he goes over to the Doctor and asks his opinion on the matter. Looking at the piece of paper he gave him earlier, confirming that the Doctor knew this would occur, the Doctor starts to explain that Earth once had a twin planet, millions of years ago, but Cutler cuts him off in disbelief and storms back to the monitoring room, opening a communications line to General Wigner at Geneva. The Doctor discreetly confides in Ben and Polly that from what he knows of this new planet, they should be expecting visitors. Cutler returns to interrogating the travellers since the Doctor seems to know more than he's telling, not allowing them to leave and ordering his men to break into the TARDIS. Outside, a mysterious spacecraft lands close to Snowcap. The men inside go out to examine and trying and get into the TARDIS; the sergeant sends Private Tito back to get tools when he spots a number of robotic figures approaching him from the distance. He tries to shoot them but they kill him with a single strike; when the other men return, they kill them as well. Episode 2 The Doctor warns Cutler of their upcoming arrivals, but he refuses to believe him. He contacts Williams and Schultz on Zeus IV and tells them that there are no problems. Outside, the robotic creatures disguise themselves in the cloaks of the dead crew members and head into Snowcap. General Wigner watches a broadcast on the television speaking to the public about the appearance of this new planet, when Geneva's technicians detect a large energy output coming from Snowcap. Barclay readies to bring Zeus IV into another orbit; the Doctor argues this course of action with him and an angry Cutler when the creatures storm the monitoring room and kill one of the men. Cutler orders them to stand down so they can get the astronauts down, but the proclaim that it's too late to return them to Earth. They identify themselves as Cybermen, the inhabitants of the new planet, Mondas, which, as the Doctor said, was twins with Earth eons ago before it drifted away from it's orbit to the edge of space. They also explain that they used to be just like humanity, before they discovered that they were growing steadily weaker and augmented themselves into new, cybernetic bodies, as well as ridding themselves of emotions, which they considered a weakness. While Polly tries to understand their removal of their emotion, Cutler spontaneously sends a Emergency signal to Geneva. As Geneva receives the signal, the Cybermen order Cutler to radio them and inform them that nothing is wrong; when he refuses, the Cybermen disable him and order Barclay to do it instead under the threat of destroying the link to the rocket if he too refuses. After their commands are seen too, Barclay pleads with them to let them contact Williams and Schultz and, in spite of their deciding the effort is futile, they allow it with no objection. When the Cybermen remove the dead man, Ben, against the Doctor and Polly's wishes, lunges for the gun in a bid to escape, but the Cybermen stop him, bend the gun out of shape with virtually no effort and take him away to be locked up in a projection room. The base manages to contact Zeus IV and try to direct them back into Earth's orbit; before they hit the orbit, their retro-rocket run out of fuel while the craft is still moving too fast for re-entry orbit and the ship is destroyed. The Cybermen ask for information to be transmitted to Mondas so that they can be 'saved', revealing that Mondas is approaching Earth to gather energy on account of it's own energy supply being exhausted and the human race are only going to survive by being taken to Mondas with them. In the projector room, Ben look around for a way to get out and decides to try using the projector to blind the Cyberman guard. The bid is successful and Ben manages to take it's weapon but is forced to kill it when it advances on him. Barclay and Dyson discuss the possibility of the Cybermen telling the truth about Mondas' energy loss and Dyson wishes to remain behind. The Cybermen reveal that if humanity were to go with them, they would all be turned into Cybermen, to Polly's distress and the Doctor's incense. At the same time, Ben sneaks back into the monitoring room and hands the Cyberman's weapon to Cutler, who had awoken behind the Cyberman guarding him. Cutler uses the weapon to take out the Cybermen in the room and orders Geneva to be contacted and informed of the situation. Wigner orders Cutler to establish contact with the astronaut initially sent to bring Williams and Schultz down, before dourly informing him that the astronaut is his son. Geneva puts a call out to all other military instillations telling them to be on their guard, following the news of the Cybermen's arrival on Snowcap. The Doctor tries to warn Cutler that he's underestimating the Cybermen but he again doesn't listen, when he is informed that an mass of spaceships have been detected on the scanners, flying in formation at his son's capsule. Episode 3 While Cutler and Dyson attempt to contact Zeus V, the Doctor suddenly collapses, to the concern of his companions. While they take him a cabin to recover, Cutler manages to reach his son Terry and informs him of the situation. Terry reports that his capsule is registering some power loss on the far side of the planet while Ben and Polly return to the monitoring room. Cutler then turns to the rest of the base personnel and informs them, to their shock are mild horror, that he plans to destroy Mondas using the Z-Bomb, a doomsday weapon capable of splitting the planet in two. Making the call to Geneva, Cutler asks for permission to launch to Z-Bomb, but Wigner refuses to let him take precipitate action against anything but the Cybermen. Despite this, Culter orders the countdown to it's launch to be engaged anyway; Ben tries to dissuade him, but Cutler, having had enough of the travellers presence and involvement all together, order him and Polly to be locked up with the Doctor. Ben tries to reason with him on the Doctor's assumption that Mondas would soon overload on it's energy intake and destroy itself, but he just ignores his pleas and sends him away, while Polly stays to convince Barclay to help, as he clearly fears the ramifications of using the bomb. Ben is unsuccessful in trying to wake the Doctor so tries to break himself out; after failing to pick the door's lock, he tries getting out through the air duct. While arming the rocket, Cutler confesses to Dyson that he is afraid of launching it but feels that he hasn't any choice if the planet is to be saved. In the monitoring room, Barclay attempts to reach Terry on the radio but they're blocked by interference; Polly tries to get Barclay to help them in keeping the bomb for exploding by disarming the rocket. Cutler returns in the midst of the discussion and plots to ambush the Cybermen with their own weapons when they land. After he leaves, Barclay and Polly go to help Ben; Barclay tells Ben that he would be able to get into the rocket silo through the vent shaft while he and Polly distract the monitor and act on his instructions to stop the launch. Just as he explains the plan, the Cybermen land nearby and a battle takes place above, with the captured Cybermen weapons being fired at the approaching Cybermen. While this is going on, Ben sneaks into the ducts and follows Barcley's directions to the silo, entering while he distracts the technicians and uses his instructions to disarm the warhead. While Cutler watches his men take the dead Cybermen's weapons, he notices Barclay is missing and heads to the rocket silo, storming in to find Ben working on the rocket and knocks him unconscious. Returning them to the monitoring room, Cutler vows that if their sabotage has prevented the rocket's launch and jeopardised Terry's life, he will kill them. The countdown for the launch begins as Ben regains consciousness, disoriented and unable to remember if he successfully stalled the rocket before he was caught just as the countdown hits zero. Episode 4 As soon as blast-off is announced, the rocket's engines failed; Cutler is furious and declares that Ben, Polly, the now-awakened Doctor and Barclay are to be killed for this. He tries to get through to Zeus V ''and manages to reach Terry, when he reports that his capsules power is failing when the signal breaks. Certain that is son is now dead, Cutler flies into a deranged fury and goes to execute the Doctor when the Cybermen break in and executes him. The Doctor tells them that they prevented the rocket being launched at Mondas and offers the Cybermen a place to stay on Earth, but they refuse to negotiate with a rocket aimed at them. To ensure their cooperation, the Cybermen take Polly as hostage until the warhead is removed from the rocket and put somewhere safe; the Doctor reluctantly agrees. Upon being brought to their ship, Polly is knocked unconscious and placed in a large metal chair. With Cutler dead, the Doctor takes control of Snowcap and receives word from Wigner that the Cybermen have landed in force on many parts of the world, just as they break into Geneva and demand surrender. The Doctor overhears the Cybermen discuss a second objective and deduces that they're planning to detonate the Z-Bomb on Earth and destroy it while they return to Mondas. He radios this down to Ben, Barclay and Dyson; Ben uses this information to their advantage, deducing that the Cybermen, being as strong as they are, are afraid to handle the bomb themselves out of fear of radioactivity. After confirming this theory, they surmise that they just have to wait for Mondas to break up, but Ben remembers that the Cybermen still have the Doctor and Polly. The Cybermen contact the silo and order them to continue work on the warhead, but Ben refuses to work with them. Refusing to let Mondas be destroyed, they order the Doctor sent to their ship to force their hand. Ben destroys the communication system so the Cybermen can't spy on them and he and Barclay, along with a highly-reluctant Dyson, plot to extract one of the rocket's radioactive reactor rods and use it against them. Up in the monitoring room, the Cybermen watch Mondas approaching it's point of destruction and discover the damage to the communicaion system. Taking one of the reactor rods by hand, Ben uses himself as bait for the Cybermen while Dyson and Haines come up behind them with the radioactive material. When they arrive, they attempt to smoke the humans out, so they open the door and kill the Cybermen with reactor rods and their own weapons, though Haines is killed in the process. Returning to the monitoring room, Ben and Dyson use the Cybermen's communication unit to send a signal and call them out of their ship. As the Cybermen arrive, everybody watches the screens as Mondas finally burns up; at the moment it does, the Cybermen all collapse and die, as do all the others across the planet. Suddenly, Cutler's son makes contact on the radio and asks for help getting them down while Ben rushes to the Cybermen's ship to break the Doctor and Polly. After he releases them, the Doctor, having grown incredibly weak, struggles to his feet and staggers back to the TARDIS. When he returns, the lights in the TARDIS start flicking and the controls move on their own. The Doctor manages to muster enough strength to open the doors and let his companions inside before he collapses onto the floor and launches the ship. Before the eyes of a dumbstruck Ben and Polly, the Doctor's face is engulfed in a bright light, which then dissipates to reveal a younger-looking man. Cast * Dr. Who - William Hartnell * Polly - Anneke Wills * Ben - Michael Craze * General Cutler - Robert Beatty * Williams - Earl Cameron * Dyson - Dudley Jones * Barclay - David Dodimead * Schultz - Alan White * Tito - Shane Shelton * American Sergeant - John Brandon * Wigner - Steve Plytas * Radar Technician - Christopher Matthews * Krail - Reg Whitehead * Talon - Harry Brooks * Shav - Gregg Palmer * Geneva Technician - Ellen Cullen * TV Announcer - Glenn Beck * Cyberman Voices - Roy Skelton, Peter Hawkins * R/T Technician - Christopher Dunham * Terry Cutler - Callen Angelo * Krang - Harry Brooks * Jarl - Reg Whitehead * Gern - Gregg Palmer Crew * Assistant Floor Manager - Jenny McArthur * Costumes - Sandra Reid * Designer - Peter Kindred * Make-Up - Gillian James * Producer - Innes Lloyd * Production Assistant - Edwina Verner * Script Editor - Gerry Davis * Special Sounds - Brian Hodgson * Studio Lighting - Howard King * Studio Sound - Adrian Bishop-Laggett * Theme Arrangement - Delia Derbyshire * Title Music - Ron Grainer References ''To be added Story notes To be added Broadcast & Ratings Continuity To be added Home video and audio releases To be added External Links * Official ''The Tenth Planet'' page on '''Doctor Who Website